He said that the industry still has a long way to go and new markets need to be tapped. He stressed the need for developing new products as well as new uses for the existing products.

Speaking on the Exim policy, the DGFT said that the government has of late become more proactive to the needs of the industry though much more can be desired. On World Trade Organisation, Lakhanpal said that it offered an excellent opportunity and a challenge-both to the trade as well as government- and the two could work together to exploit the opportunities available. He, however, said that the incentives, given under 80 HHC to exporters is considered as a subsidy under the DPCO, will be affected as an anti-subsidy could be imposed on the commodities.

Gaurav Swarup, chairman ofPlexconcil said that as anti-subsidy duties can only be imposed if the price of a good sold is lower than the cost of producing it in the exporters country, it means that exporters are incurring losses, hence the question of 80 HHC does not arise.

Earlier in his speech, the chairman pointed out that the plastic exports offers tremendous scope as India's share in world of plastics is of the order of 0.002 per cent only.

Emphasising on the much debated point of procedural hassles, he said that the industry could generate additional exports in the region of 12 to 15 per cent if the hassles were eliminated.

Swarup said that the delays has been tracked down to the conflicting attitudes of the ministry of commerce and revenue. While the ministry of commerce frames policies to free the export product of input level taxes, the revenue of views these schemes as loss of revenues.

One of the main grievances of the exporters present in the annual general meeting was the attitudinal problem and the delays causedby unnecessary paper works. DGFT said committees have been formed to look in the problem.On the issue of imports on advance licence basis, exporters said that they are viewed as smugglers and they have to go through a rigorous scrutinies.

Exporters said that such imports should be viewed export promotional and should be encouraged.

On the issue of DEPB, Lakhanpal said that it was not possible to have a rational scheme currently as the country has a multiple tax system unlike the value added tax system in other countries. Till such a scheme is implemented it was not possible for having a single DEPB as was the case with China, which offers extremely good flexibilities in controlling exports as well as foreign exchanges.

Plastics exports during the first four month of the current fiscal grew by 15 per cent from $116.40 million to $133.99 million in the previous year.

The star performer was plastic moulded extruded goods grew by 38.76 per cent from $25.88 million to $35.91 million in the same period.